Re: How disappointed are you?

Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 13:34:36 +1000
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
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"MIFrost" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:email-address-deleted...
| Do you tend to buy many CDs and have a low satisfaction rate or buy
| few CDs but only ones you're pretty certain you'll like a lot? I
| myself buy about 4 or 5 a month and find I really like most of them
| and am disappointed with only a few. But 4 or 5 a month is
| chicken-feed around these parts. Do you high-volume collectors like
| (or love, really) most of what you get?
I have noticed that I have been splurging lately, and have a fair bit of
catching up to do listening wise, and truly assimilating the works I have
bought in the last couple of years. Have got to curb this - too much
painting and other stuff to do in the house. But lately the average is
working out at about 5 CDs per week, but rarely premium price stuff, unless
one has a weakness (and I seem to be regressing, but heck I am not going to
feel guilty about it) for groups such as Metallica, Black Sabbath and others
of that ilk, not to mention early jazz.
Even within the CM genre (about 90% of my collection) there is enormous
discovery with new repertoire, mainly early music up to Haydn, Mozart, and
then mostly 20th century music. The discovery of never before music is what
drives me mostly, and definitely NOT the desire to search for the *ultimate*
performance of a well known work. For one thing, no such thing as a
definitive performance will ever exist, and over-exposure to the same works
is anathema to me, and a sure way to drive me away from the music. Life is
too short to leave this coil without sampling as much great music that still
lies undiscovered, as is possible. So duplication for me of composers such
as RVW, Sibelius, Bax, Bach, Haydn is limited at most to about 3 or 4, and
achieved via years of assimilation of bitter experience, many critics,
magazines, music heard previously on LP, on the radio, and personal taste.
I sincerely believe we all have sincere convictions about our choices, (if
only because we have partly made those choices ourselves, and enjoyed the
listening experience), and long listening experience enables many of us to
assess a recording blind for both the music and the performance of it. I
know when a performance is sluggish, and I know when music is pushed too
hard and relentlessly. I accept the exciting, even if wildly different,
sharply etched readings, but generally I have been happy with most
recordings. The present standard of musicianship is extraordinarily high
imho.
Just listening anew to the Bach Passions (Luke, John, Matthew, Mark), the
Grieg lyric pieces and intend later this week to absorb Liszt's Christus,
with the occasional lapse of weakness into the luxuriant sounds of Bax, or
Metallica.
One thing is for sure. Life would be a complete pain without music, as
Nietzsche himself was supposed to have said. But like many, I too have to
curb my natural inclination to buy everything, and like another has said,
one can pay an awful lot for a concert ticket. Which of itself begs the
question. Shouldn't we all be going to more concerts and sacrificing a few
CD purchases for the real thing?
Regards, # http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html See You Tamara (Ozzy Osbourne)
Ray, Taree, NSW